Library considers deal with Sheriff's Office

Since August, Dinosaur, a town of 320 people near the Utah border, has been without full-time law enforcement. The Moffat County Library Board of Trustees has entered the mix in helping the Sheriff's Office fix that problem.

The Board of Trustees unanimously agreed Monday to endorse a letter supporting the Sheriff's Office bid to claim a state grant that would pay for housing a full-time sheriff's deputy in Dinosaur. Board members are supporting the sheriff's request to lease property once home to the Dinosaur library inside the Blue Mountain RV and mobile-home park.

The grant comes from the state's Energy and Mineral Impact Assistance Fund. Providing quarters for a new deputy in Dinosaur has become a priority because, Sheriff Buddy Grinstead said, the town has limited housing.

"We've got to get them out there somehow," Grinstead said.

The library property, though not its own, most likely would need to be leased to the county. Library officials said the property does not belong to them but was donated by Western Fuel under the caveat that the land would be used to benefit the library.

Officials said one possibility would be using the lot rent to help pay for materials and programs at the Dinosaur library.

Cathy Gush, a library board of trustee, said she thought a deal between the two sides to help bring a deputy to Dinosaur would be a benefit "to the town and to the library."

Library officials said they are researching the legalities of leasing the property. Moffat County commissioners, who will approve state grant requests, are slated to finalize the request March 28.

• Approved paying an invoice of $5,691 to EBSCO for materials. The invoice is $909 less because the library will not renew its subscription of the New York Times. "We just can't afford the New York Times anymore," library director Donna Watkins said.

• Approved paying an invoice of $1,515 to Capital Business Systems, Inc., for annual renewal of microform viewer and copier.